Fútbol Is Not the Problem but the Violence Against Women That Follows Every Major Match Absolutely Is

The 2026 World Cup has been running for weeks across the United States, Mexico and Canada, drawing tens of millions of fans to stadiums, fan zones, bars and public spaces as the tournament continues to build toward its final stages. The scale of the event is historic. So is the concern that human rights organizations, women’s shelters and United Nations agencies have been raising since before the first whistle blew: large sporting events are consistently associated with sharp increases in violence against women and girls, and the World Cup is one of the largest mass gatherings the world produces.

The conversation about this pattern has rarely received the same attention as the tournament itself, but the organizations working on the ground in all three host countries have been pushing to change that since the competition began.

The Numbers Behind the Pattern

The Red Nacional de Refugios, known as the RNR, is Mexico’s national network of shelters for victims of gender-based violence, and its director Wendy Figueroa has been one of the clearest voices documenting the relationship between major sporting events and surging violence against women. When local championship matches are played in Mexico, the network receives between 15 and 20 percent more distress calls than on regular days. Figueroa has been careful to note that fútbol does not create the violence, because the violence already exists in both public and private spaces, but that major events intensify it in ways the data consistently confirms.

Research from other countries supports the same conclusion. A study conducted in Brazil found that between 2015 and 2018, on days when local teams played, threats against women increased by 23.7 percent and physical assaults rose by 20.8 percent. A University of Lancaster study based on police reports filed in England during the 2002, 2006 and 2010 World Cups found that the risk of domestic violence increased by 26 percent when the English team won or drew, and by 38 percent when they lost. The violence does not stay confined to the stadiums or the streets surrounding them. It reaches into wherever the matches are being watched, including inside homes.

The mechanism that allows this violence to remain invisible even as it escalates is rooted in normalization. The way men express euphoria, anger and rivalry during sporting events, through control, shouting, insults and physical aggression, is treated as an extension of acceptable behavior rather than an act of violence that demands a response, even when those emotions are directed at the women, children and girls around them.

The Trafficking Risk Nobody Is Talking About

The concern reaches past domestic violence and street harassment into something considerably more organized and dangerous. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Mexico has described mass events like the World Cup as fertile ground for sexual exploitation crimes, with trafficking networks actively exploiting the conditions these events create. The primary recruitment method involves offering victims plane tickets and accommodation under the pretense of legitimate work opportunities, and then exploiting them sexually upon arrival.

Networks may also move their victims between the three host countries during the competition specifically to avoid detection by authorities. Reports from the UNODC and UNICEF have both flagged the World Cup as a period of elevated trafficking risk, and the Paris Olympics served as a recent example of an event where trafficking activity was confirmed but could not be adequately quantified because reporting remained incomplete. The true scale of the crime during events of this magnitude is consistently underreported and therefore consistently underestimated.

The UNODC has launched a campaign in partnership with the organization Sin Trata, Uber and the Citizens Council for Security and Justice in Mexico City to help World Cup attendees identify possible cases of exploitation. The campaign also includes an agreement with Airbnb to alert hosts in strategic areas about guests who may be traffickers or people being exploited by criminal organizations. Tourist areas surrounding match venues are identified as particularly high-risk zones, and authorities are urging anyone who notices suspicious activity to report it immediately.

What Is Being Done Across Three Countries

The RNR has joined forces with partner networks in the United States and Canada to coordinate support for victims of gender-based violence across all three host countries throughout the tournament. In Mexico, the network has deployed information brigades at the World Cup venues in Mexico City, Nuevo León and Jalisco, three states that rank among the highest in the country for reported cases of domestic violence according to national security data.

The network has also committed to covering the cost of transportation for victims who find themselves stranded across borders as a result of violence experienced during the tournament. If a Mexican woman is left without support in the United States or Canada, the RNR will cover her return. If a foreign woman from either of those countries requires help getting home from Mexico, the network will cover that transfer with the full security protocols it maintains for situations of this kind.

The World Cup has generated billions of dollars, filled stadiums across three countries and produced moments that will be replayed for decades. The organizations working alongside that celebration are asking the world to hold two realities at once: the joy of the game and the harm that runs through the weeks it occupies, for the women and girls who bear the cost of it most directly.